Case Study: Cambridge Management Consulting Delivers TSA Programme 6 Months Early and Under Budget

Utilising our significant experience and proven M&A framework, we successfully managed the global divestiture for a multinational financial services company.

The goal of the programme was the transition of two financial derivatives trading platform businesses. The client approached Cambridge Management Consulting to advise them on the optimal way to deliver a business-critical transition and TSA.

The initial engagement was to review and implement a TSA programme and support the client with consulting services to deliver an optimised TSA. We quickly became a trusted partner, and our engagement was extended to leading the delivery of the transition programme.

Our experience in managing and delivering successful TSA transitions resulted in our TSA Manager, Program Manager, Project Managers, Solution Architects and PMO remaining on the TSA from start to finish, ensuring consistency and continuity. 

The Challenge

• Client lacked in-house M&A experience and the appropriate resources

• TSA contract lacked detail which threatened transition timeline and budget

• Complex global HR transition requirements (US, UK, EU & India)

• FS Global compliance where different regions have different regulatory compliance standards

• Licensing consent complexity: transition period required the acquiror to contract for ~100 licenses while the client continued to provide an interim service 

• Financial market instability during transition period resulted in staffing challenges impacting the HR workstream

• We were challenged by the client to optimise the timeline to exit the TSA earlier than the contracted 18-month duration

Solutions

• Cambridge MC resolved issues with the TSA contract and aligned all parties through a detailed ‘blueprint’ and contract amendment. Typically, we would be engaged early to develop the TSA alongside the client

• Cambridge MC are experienced with cross-border M&A and the legal implications from TUPE and other workforce legal requirements

• Our Contract Management team are skilled at assessing and resolving contractual issues and preventing loss of service and unforeseen costs

• Our HR capability can step in to help with staffing issues and take the pressure off in-house HR teams

• Our commitment to delivering cost-effective consultancy services means that we delivered the TSA 6 months early and under budget

Approach

• We ran 16 global projects (with 4 sub-programmes)

• We provided our client with direct access to a team of highly experienced on-demand professionals who remained on the programme for the duration, providing consistency and continuity

• Our PMOaaS hybrid programme approach used both Agile and Waterfall iterative methods in a Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) framework. This approach enabled the programme to gather momentum—planning as knowledge was understood—rather than trying to plan everything up-front

• Full blueprint (MSP artefact) production defined the scope of Roles & Responsibilities, dependencies and the project portfolio definition

• Using our collaborative approach to client relationship management, we brought all the parties together under a jointly agreed definition of what success looks like—this set the vision for the entire project
  

Results

1. Highly successful transition which satisfied both parties

2. 18-month programme was delivered within 12 months and under budget

3. All contractual obligations were met